Batguano

I installed Hawk HPs all the way around on my 91FC.
First 6 months, OK. then they started squeeling bad when I put normal presure on to stop. If I press hard, they stop making noise.
I have taken them off, cleaned and put new anti squeel liquid on the pads and shims reinstalled with the shims but still noisy.
Anybody have any ideas? I want to use high performance pads but if they all do this, I'll go back to standard.

maxcooper

Which pads do you have:

1. Hawk HP+
2. Hawk HPS

?

-Max

Batguano

I have HP pads. Also I have the 4 piston front calipers.

Howard Coleman

iTrader: (6)

there are many brands and iterations of brake pads available and let me say i am not an expert on all of the choices...

that said, what i can tell you is that i switched to EBC carbon kevlar pads (green for street, red for track) in '99 and i will never run anything else.

i run a white fd and in 99, after installing the m2 AP brake package, started getting huge amounts of brake dust on the sides of the car.

i decided to try another brand of pad and ended up w the EBCs.

absolutely no brake dust... ( i don't know where it goes)

no noise

the rotors look better than new after 4 years. BTW, the noise form your pads is a sign that bad things are happening to your rotors... take a close look at them.

a really nice pedal feel

no fade.

i drive my car pretty hard and they really do the job. i now spend my time thinking about other things to do with my car instead of brake issues.

some people have reported short pad life w EBC pads... i am still running my first set of greens. perhaps they had real ratty rotors when they installed them.

good luck,

howard coleman

DamonB

The squeal from pads is actually them resonating inside the calipers. The squeal comes from the backing plates of the pads against the pistons and caliper body, not from between the friction material and the rotor. That's why you can make the sqeal come and go by varying pedal pressure as well as road speed. My HP+ squeal terribly at slow crawls up to the stoplight but are quiet when used "hard". The squeal and rotor wear are not related. They do make the wheels dirty in a hurry though.

I've been through 3+ sets of HP+ on my FD and have yet to wear the rotors out of spec. I have them turned whenever I change pads but there's really no grooving present, I just "skim" off a very slight amount of material to renew the surface of the rotor faces. I forget the exact specs off the top of my head but seems like last I checked I was roughly 3/4" of the way to the replacement thickness. Most of that is from me turning the rotors I'm sure but I'm not certain how many miles were on these rotors when I bought the car; chassis has 125K on it now.

maxcooper

Hawk doesn't make plain "HP" pads. I do see they have a new "HP SuperDuty" compound, but it doesn't appear to be available for the 4-piston FC/FD calipers:

http://www.hawkperformance.com/product_features.cfm

So, since you can't have plain "HP" pads, which pads do you have:

1. Hawk "HP Plus" (a.k.a "HP+")
2. Hawk "HPS"

If you have HP Plus pads, squeal is common but you can get lucky and have minimal squeal (my HP+ pads didn't squeal much). If you have "HPS" pads, you should be able to get them to not squeal.

-Max

adam c

iTrader: (2)

I used to have a squeal problem with my FB, and certain pads. The way I got rid of it, was to put a light swirl pattern on the rotors with some medium grade sandpaper. This worked pretty well. Sometimes it lasted 6 months before they started squealing again.

Let us know........ if you try it.

Batguano

Thanks all. I'll reevaluate.